Friday, September 10
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Creating environments of love
In the film Chocolat, a married couple, Serge and Josephine, are falling apart. Serge beats his wife Josephine, a mousy woman who mutters under her breath and secretly steals from the other residents of their sleepy French village. Both of them are a wreck and their marrige is a disaster.
One night, after Serge leaves a brutal mark on her forehead, Josephine flees to Vianne's chocolate shop looking for help. Desperate to save his reputation, Serge runs to the town mayor for help. With the help of their rescuers, Serge and Josephine undergo two very different processes of transformation. The mayor takes Serge through a series of activities, designed to turn him into a gentleman while Vianne opens up her life and her heart to Josephine as she teaches her the secrets of her chocolate shop. Serge places himself in a procedure designed to transform him from the outside in. Josephine places herself in the presence of someone who loves her and she changes from the inside out, emerging as a radiant, confident woman.
This scene from the film is a parable of the church today. We offer many opportunities for transformation that don't seem to do much when what we really need is to offer wounded men and women a place to be loved in the midst of their brokenness.
In his book, The Complete Book of Discipleship, Bill Hull acknowledges that "just about everyone agrees that love is life's most powerful force. However, few people really understand love or have any idea how to create an environment of love."
What do you think? How can we intentionally harness the power of love in our churches? What would it look like to create an environment where love flows and transforms?
- Brian Owen's blog
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Comments
Inside-Outside-In
I'm a little leery of the opposition you pose at the beginning. In general, our tendency is to work on external matters, attempting to make external changes produce internal transformation, and the results are typically not all we'd want. Working on internal matters to produce external transformation seems to generate better results (though it's often more difficult in some ways). But we still have this body attached to us, and the body tends to develop habits and ruts that need to be worked through, and changing those require external training. Therefore, while external work is insufficient to produce internal transformation, when appropriately coupled with internal work, even greater things can result, I think.
both involve the body
Matthew,
Perhaps I expressed too strong of a dichotomy. Both characters I described actually do something with their bodily habits. Both remove their bodies from an unhealthy environment and both place themeselves in a new environment in which the both engage in a new set of behaviors.
I think that Josephine's situation leads to authentic transformation because she is now acting in the presence of someone who loves her, much the way we abide in Christ and bear much fruit from that relationship. (obviously, I can't go to far with the metaphor, but you get the idea).